


somebody that i used to know

by naomi_winchester



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Feelings, Heartbreak, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Singer Michael Mell, Song Lyrics, Song fic, band au, somebody that i used to know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 08:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17505311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naomi_winchester/pseuds/naomi_winchester
Summary: Based off of goya's "Somebody That I Used To Know (ft boyf riends)" animatic on YouTube.Jeremy and Michael didn't last. Maybe they were never meant to.They both keep living and their lives change without each other in them, but Michael never really moves on.What happens when Brooke and Chloe take Jeremy to one of Michael's concerts?





	somebody that i used to know

Jeremy sighed as he pulled into the cramped lot, digging his phone out of his pocket and dialing a number. As it rang, he parked and got out of his car, heading towards the building.

Brooke answered as he walked in, looking around the room and getting a feel for what kind of event it was. There were merch booths in the corner, selling t-shirts and stuff with “MIB” on the front of them.

“Hello?”

He doesn’t even give her a greeting. “What the hell are we doing here? You guys don’t even like these kinds of concerts-”

He gives another exasperated sigh as he spots Chloe and Brook and hangs up, marching over to their direction.

“Who’s playing, anyway?” he asks the two girls, turning his head toward the stage…

Only to see something that makes him freeze.

“Oh, we don’t like this, but you do,” Chloe says.

“Someone you used to know is playing,” Brooke says, giving him a knowing look.

Jeremy can only stare at him.

Michael Mell in all his glory, still wearing that stupid red hoodie from high school. In fact, he doesn’t look like he’s aged a bit. After all, it’s really only been a few years since…

Well, since the end of their friendship. The end of high school.

It seems quite a bit has changed on Michael’s end though.

Jeremy isn’t ready for that moment, the moment that Michael’s and his own eyes meet.

He wasn’t ready for Michael’s charming smile at the crowd to drop at the sight of him. He wasn’t ready for Michael to get angry, to turn around and give a quick word to the rest of his band before clearing his throat in the mic.

“Hey, guys!”

The crowd cheers, and for one tiny second, Michael smiles back at them.

“So, this is completely unplanned and unscripted, but uh… how would you guys feel if we sang my first song?”

The crowd is deafening with their excited screams.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Michael laughed, then frowned again. “I uh, I wrote this in high school, shortly after - you guessed it - my first break-up. I hope you guys enjoy it more than I did.”

And then the band starts playing.

And Michael begins to sing.

“You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness…” he locks eyes with Jeremy again, who’s standing numbly in the back of the room. “Like resignation to the end, always the end.”

Michael tears his eyes away, tears forming in the corners of his eyes as he thinks about that day…

Michael and Jeremy had been together for about 3 months, 3 blessedly peaceful months after the SQUIP incident.

_“Michael…”_

_Michael looks up at Jeremy, startled. “Yeah?”_

_“I don’t think I can do this.”_

_Michael looks down, hands clenching. “Do what?”_

_Jeremy puts down his controller, finally looking over at the other boy. “I just, um. I’ve thought about it, and I just-”_

_“Just what?” Michael whispered._

_“I don’t think that this makes sense. Us, I mean. I’m sorry, man. We can, um. We can still be friends though?”_

_“Okay,” Michael says softly._

_And if he thinks about it, Michael saw it coming._

_Jeremy had been distant in the week before his **departure.** He’d hesitated with every word he said, even more with any physical contact. And then, after the inevitable end, ‘just friends’ didn’t become an option. _

_Jeremy stopped talking with him, stopped hanging out with him, and in the end, Jeremy stopped thinking of Michael._

_But God, Michael never stopped thinking of him._

He waited and __wished__  for this day, he dreamed for the day he could finally throw Jeremy’s words right back into his face.

“So when we found that we could not make sense, well you said that we would still be friends… But I'll admit that I was glad it was over.”

Anger swells in Michael’s chest at the thought of Jeremy, at the sight of Jeremy walking up to the front of the room, at the memory of Jeremy walking away.

“But you didn’t have to cut me off!” he screams. “Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing!” He looks away, hand absentmindedly grabbing at his hoodie above his heart, fingers clenching. “And I don’t even need your love!” Michael turns back to face Jeremy, eyes accusing. “But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough.”

By now Jeremy’s numb feet have carried him to the front of the room, eyes locked on Michael’s.

Michael bends down, singing directly to Jeremy now. “No, you didn’t have to stoop so low!” He gives Jeremy a shove, making him stumble back a few feet as Michael sings, “Have your friends collect your records and then change your number!”

Jeremy’s face burns with shame at the mention.

Because it was true.

He’d said, “We can still be friends?” and then he disappeared from Michael’s life. He had Brooke and Chloe get his shit from Michael’s basement and he’d started ignoring Michael’s calls and texts. When the guilt of a thousand missed calls started to weigh a bit too heavy on his shoulders, he changed his number.

“I guess that I don’t need that though… now you’re just somebody that I used to know.”

Michael closes his eyes, and Jeremy swallows hard as he recognizes the expression of Michael holding back tears. “Now you’re just somebody that I used to know.”

Michael shakes his head, bitter. “Now you’re just somebody that I used to know!”

Michael paces on the stage, every step building up the tension. When he stops to sing again, it's like a whisper. “Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over… had me believing it was always something that I’d done.”

Jeremy looks down in shame.

It was true. He didn’t leave it like he should have. Jeremy was a coward and he didn’t want, no, _couldn’t take_ all of the blame.

So he let Michael take it. It was so easy at the time. He put everything on Michael’s shoulders and sent him away.

_God, how could he do that?_

“But I don’t wanna live that way- reading into every word you say!” Michael is shouting, the words pour from his mouth in a way that was long overdue, a mess of agony and fury. “I said that I could let it go and you wouldn’t catch me hung up on somebody that I used to know!”

Michael had promised himself he would let Jeremy go. He had told himself that he deserved more. He told himself that Jeremy was nothing, that it didn’t hurt, that it shouldn’t hurt.

But-

“-you didn’t have to cut me off! Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing!” Michael shakes his head violently, hand tightening around the mic. “And I don’t even need your love!”

“But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough.”

He looks down at Jeremy, hurt evident in his eyes, a betrayal so deeply buried in them that Jeremy feels as if he’s already six feet under.

“No, you didn’t have to stoop so low! Have your friends collect your records and then change your number!” Michael shrugs, the movement sharp and his body tense. “I guess that I don’t need that though… now you’re just somebody that I used to know.”

The music slows down a bit, Michael rocking back and forth on his heels as he sings, “Somebody I used to know, somebody…”

The lights on stage flash and Jeremy can see the tears light up on Michael’s cheeks. “Now you’re just somebody that I used to know…”

Jeremy lives alone now. He has no girlfriend, no boyfriends, no friends. Anyone he thought worth tossing Michael aside for was long gone.

“Somebody… I used to know.”

God, he misses him. Michael was the one person in the entire world that he could count on, and Jeremy had let him down.

“Somebody… now you’re just somebody that I used to know.”

But Michael would never forgive him. Michael could forgive a lot of things, but not this.

“I used to know… that I used to know. I used to know… somebody…”

 


End file.
